Author: Alice Childress
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807050741
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 266
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Book Description
Recommended by Entertainment Weekly The hilarious, uncompromising novel about African American domestic workers—from a trailblazer in Black women’s literature and now featuring a foreword by Roxane Gay First published in Paul Robeson’s newspaper, Freedom, and composed of a series of conversations between Mildred, a black domestic, and her friend Marge, Like One of the Family is a wry, incisive portrait of working women in Harlem in the 1950s. Rippling with satire and humor, Mildred’s outspoken accounts vividly capture her white employers’ complacency and condescension—and their startled reactions to a maid who speaks her mind and refuses to exchange dignity for pay. Upon publication the book sparked a critique of working conditions, laying the groundwork for the contemporary domestic worker movement. Although she was critically praised, Childress’s uncompromising politics and unflinching depictions of racism, classism, and sexism relegated her to the fringe of American literature. Like One of the Family has been long overlooked, but this new edition, featuring a foreword by best-selling author Roxane Gay, will introduce Childress to a new generation.
Author: Jacquelyn Dowd Hall
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 0807882941
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 541
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Book Description
Since its original publication in 1987, Like a Family has become a classic in the study of American labor history. Basing their research on a series of extraordinary interviews, letters, and articles from the trade press, the authors uncover the voices and experiences of workers in the Southern cotton mill industry during the 1920s and 1930s. Now with a new afterword, this edition stands as an invaluable contribution to American social history. "The genius of Like a Family lies in its effortless integration of the history of the family--particularly women--into the history of the cotton-mill world.--Ira Berlin, New York Times Book Review "Like a Family is history, folklore, and storytelling all rolled into one. It is a living, revelatory chronicle of life rarely observed by the academe. A powerhouse.--Studs Terkel "Here is labor history in intensely human terms. Neither great impersonal forces nor deadening statistics are allowed to get in the way of people. If students of the New South want both the dimensions and the feel of life and labor in the textile industry, this book will be immensely satisfying.--Choice
Author: Fiona Mills
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 144389639X
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 201
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Book Description
Kathryn Stockett’s 2009 best-selling novel The Help and its subsequent 2011 film center on the experiences of African-American domestic workers living in Jackson, Mississippi. Stockett’s sanitized portrayal of life in the Deep South where black women were charged with rearing white children while concurrently barred from sharing toilets and common eating areas with their employers simultaneously enthralled and disturbed readers and viewers alike. Notably, it is not the domestics themselves who render their tales but rather Eugenia Phelan, a white, twenty-something Mississippian with whom they hesitantly collaborate, who ultimately “voices” their stories of life during the harrowing early days of the Civil Rights movement in the Deep South. Essentially, these stories are articulated through the voice of a white woman; a fact that becomes even more complex when one acknowledges that this fictional tale of the inner life of black maids working in Jackson, Mississippi, one of the most notorious states in regards to racial atrocities suffered during the mid-twentieth century, is rendered through the words of a white southern writer. Despite the book’s positive public reception, its sentimental portrait of the lives of African-American domestic workers is troubling due to its heavy-handed use of dialect and “feel good” message about the admirable interventions of a white protagonist intent on alleviating some suffering while glossing over the vicious attacks on African-Americans during the Civil Rights era. The issue of visibility/invisibility is central in this text. At its most basic level, the text itself has lacked traditional critical visibility, as, currently, there has been a dearth of academic books focusing on this specific novel, although the novel and subsequent film received much attention in national newspapers and magazines, as well as significant critical debate in a wide variety of online venues. This collection considers why such sterilized versions of America’s complex racial history resonate so deeply in our contemporary timeframe. Essay topics range from examinations of the laboring black female body to the impact of domestic work on families, both black and white, to explorations of the connections between rhetoric, writing and race. Also included are several comparative pieces that draw connections between Stockett’s work and that of 1940s cartoonist Jackie Ormes, as well as filmic comparisons to Imitation of Life (1934 and 1959) and Black Girl (1966) by Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène. With a “Preface” by Trudier Harris and the inclusion of several essays previously published in Southern Quarterly and Southern Cultures, this volume represents the first text dedicated solely to Stockett’s wildly popular novel and its subsequent film adaptation.
Author: Fiona Mills
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781443890229
Category : African American household employees
Languages : en
Pages : 185
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Book Description
Kathryn Stockett's 2009 best-selling novel The Help and its subsequent 2011 film center on the experiences of African-American domestic workers living in Jackson, Mississippi. Stockett's sanitized portrayal of life in the Deep South where black women were charged with rearing white children while concurrently barred from sharing toilets and common eating areas with their employers simultaneously enthralled and disturbed readers and viewers alike. Notably, it is not the domestics themselves who render their tales but rather Eugenia Phelan, a white, twenty-something Mississippian with whom they hesitantly collaborate, who ultimately "voices" their stories of life during the harrowing early days of the Civil Rights movement in the Deep South. Essentially, these stories are articulated through the voice of a white woman; a fact that becomes even more complex when one acknowledges that this fictional tale of the inner life of black maids working in Jackson, Mississippi, one of the most notorious states in regards to racial atrocities suffered during the mid-twentieth century, is rendered through the words of a white southern writer. Despite the book's positive public reception, its sentimental portrait of the lives of African-American domestic workers is troubling due to its heavy-handed use of dialect and "feel good" message about the admirable interventions of a white protagonist intent on alleviating some suffering while glossing over the vicious attacks on African-Americans during the Civil Rights era. The issue of visibility/invisibility is central in this text. At its most basic level, the text itself has lacked traditional critical visibility, as, currently, there has been a dearth of academic books focusing on this specific novel, although the novel and subsequent film received much attention in national newspapers and magazines, as well as significant critical debate in a wide variety of online venues. This collection considers why such sterilized versions of America's complex racial history resonate so deeply in our contemporary timeframe. Essay topics range from examinations of the laboring black female body to the impact of domestic work on families, both black and white, to explorations of the connections between rhetoric, writing and race. Also included are several comparative pieces that draw connections between Stockett's work and that of 1940s cartoonist Jackie Ormes, as well as filmic comparisons to Imitation of Life (1934 and 1959) and Black Girl (1966) by Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembéne. With a "Preface" by Trudier Harris and the inclusion of several essays previously published in Southern Quarterly and Southern Cultures, this volume represents the first text dedicated solely to Stockett's wildly popular novel and its subsequent film adaptation.
Author: Gail Lukasik
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 151072415X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 376
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Book Description
White Like Her: My Family’s Story of Race and Racial Passing is the story of Gail Lukasik’s mother’s “passing,” Gail’s struggle with the shame of her mother’s choice, and her subsequent journey of self-discovery and redemption. In the historical context of the Jim Crow South, Gail explores her mother’s decision to pass, how she hid her secret even from her own husband, and the price she paid for choosing whiteness. Haunted by her mother’s fear and shame, Gail embarks on a quest to uncover her mother’s racial lineage, tracing her family back to eighteenth-century colonial Louisiana. In coming to terms with her decision to publicly out her mother, Gail changed how she looks at race and heritage. With a foreword written by Kenyatta Berry, host of PBS's Genealogy Roadshow, this unique and fascinating story of coming to terms with oneself breaks down barriers.
Author: Jane Brox
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 9780807021071
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 196
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Book Description
Amid the turmoil after her father's death-decisions to be made, the future of the family farm to be settled-Jane Brox, using her acclaimed "compassion, honesty, and restraint" (The Boston Globe), begins a search for her family's story. The search soon leads her to the quintessentially American history of New England's Merrimack Valley, its farmers, and the immigrant workers caught up in the industrial textile age. Jane Brox's first book, Here and Nowhere Else, won the 1996 L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and magazines, and has been represented in Best American Essays. She is a frequent contributor to The Georgia Review. Jane Brox lives in the Merrimack Valley of Massachusetts.
Author: Naomi Krupitsky
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525542000
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 385
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Book Description
The Instant New York Times bestseller A TODAY Show Read with Jenna Book Club Pick A captivating debut novel about the tangled fates of two best friends and daughters of the Italian mafia, and a coming-of-age story of twentieth-century Brooklyn itself. Two daughters. Two families. One inescapable fate. Sofia Colicchio is a free spirit, loud and untamed. Antonia Russo is thoughtful, ever observing the world around her. Best friends since birth, they live in the shadow of their fathers’ unspoken community: the Family. Sunday dinners gather them each week to feast, discuss business, and renew the intoxicating bond borne of blood and love. But the disappearance of Antonia’s father drives a whisper-thin wedge between the girls as they grow into women, wives, mothers, and leaders. Their hearts expand in tandem with Red Hook and Brooklyn around them, as they push against the boundaries of society’s expectations and fight to preserve their complex but life-sustaining friendship. One fateful night their loyalty to each other and the Family will be tested. Only one of them can pull the trigger before it’s too late.
Author: Paolo Giordano
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698191366
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 162
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Book Description
“From aide to nanny and housekeeper . . . Paolo Giordano examines this unusual relationship in the context of one household of three. . . . Spare, elegant.”–The New York Times “Like Family. . . demands to be savored. . . Giordano's emphasis on how we choose to live and love offers subtle hope that our decisions actually matter.”—NPR.org From the author of Heaven and Earth, an exquisite portrait of marriage, adulthood, and the meaning of family Paolo Giordano’s prizewinning debut novel, The Solitude of Prime Numbers, catapulted the young Italian author into the literary spotlight. His new novel features his trademark character-driven narrative and intimate domestic setting that first made him an international sensation. When Mrs. A. first enters the narrator’s home, his wife, Nora, is experiencing a difficult pregnancy. First as their maid and nanny, then their confidante, this older woman begins to help her employers negotiate married life, quickly becoming the glue in their small household. She is the steady, maternal influence for both husband and wife, and their son, Emanuele, whom she protects from his parents’ expectations and disappointments. But the family’s delicate fabric comes undone when Mrs. A. is diagnosed with cancer. Moving seamlessly between the past and present, Giordano highlights with remarkable precision the joy of youth and the fleeting nature of time. An elegiac, heartrending, and deeply personal portrait of marriage and the people we choose to call family, this is a jewel of a novel—short, intense, and unforgettable.
Author: Arpena Sachaklian Mesrobian
Publisher: Gomidas Institute
ISBN: 9780953519118
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284
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Book Description
Author: Paula McLain
Publisher: Back Bay Books
ISBN: 031608266X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 191
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Book Description
An astonishing memoir that "demonstrates the true meaning of family" from the author of The Paris Wife and When the Stars Go Dark, detailing the years Paula McLain and her two sisters spent as foster children after being abandoned by both parents in California in the early 1970s and (Chicago Tribune). As wards of the State, the sisters spent the next 14 years moving from foster home to foster home. The dislocations, confusions, and odd pleasures of an unrooted life form the basis of one of the most compelling memoirs in recent years -- a book the tradition of Jo Ann Beard's The Boys of My Youth and Mary Karr's The Liar's Club. McLain's beautiful writing and limber voice capture the intense loneliness, sadness, and determination of a young girl both on her own and responsible, with her siblings, for staying together as a family.
